<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>21:44 radio new zealand news read by dinah vincent the prime minister has defended his sacking of the chairman of the government caucus employment committee michael laws jim bolger has accused the news media of making too much of the issue he says mister laws did not have a good working relationship with employment minister maurice mcteague and he had to go mister bolger says the issue came to a head when mister laws abandoned the government policy of seeking to halve the level of unemployment he says mister laws did that without consulting the minister something he had an obligation to do mister bolger says mister laws' suggestion that he was sacked for telling the truth is incorrect <,> catholic social service agencies throughout new zealand say the hard economic climate is causing a big change in the emphasis of their work it says lack of funds and increasing stress on the people it serves have meant a move away from preventive work to dealing almost continuously with crisis a palmerston north based speaker for the agencies margaret may says the general stress on people has grown tremendously in the past year she says some families just lurch from crisis to crisis with no respite and social workers trying to help them have little time to carry out planned preventive work to stop the development of problems <,> <&>23:00 electricorp is being accused of putting up its prices when its costs are coming down the electricity supply association says electricorp's planned price rise of about three per cent from october can't be justified by increased costs a briefing paper put out by the association says electricorp's prices are almost inflation proof because water in <.>hydro electric power stations is free and the corporation's wage costs are falling it says the corporation boasted that it negotiated a deal with the government for gas for its thermal power stations which was better than prices paid in the past and it says electricorp's financing costs will be cheaper due to falling interest rates the association concludes that the only basis for electricorp's price rise is a calculation of what consumers would be able to bear <,> about five hundred people have been killed or wounded in fighting between iraqi troops and kurdish residents of the north eastern iraq cities of sulamanayah and arbil the kurds say <&>24:00 iraqi troops started the fighting by firing on demonstrators on the twenty third anniversary of the coup which brought saddam hussein's bath party to power <&>24:07 <&>ineligible speakers <&>24:34 president mubaraq of egypt has proposed that the arab states suspend their economic boycott of israel if the israeli government stops building settlements in the occupied territories his call came after talks in alexandria with the american secretary of state james baker who's on another middle east peace mission the two were also expected to discuss syria's agreement to american plans for a peace conference based on the exchange of israeli occupied land for arab <&>25:00 recognition of israel <,> president bush has announced that the united states is to help strengthen and modernise greece's armed forces he says this will include the redeployment of american tanks and artillery based there and the sale of warplanes mister bush was speaking at a naval base on the greek island of crete which was used during the gulf war he thanked the greeks for their support during the conflict with iraq and stressed the importance of greece on nato's southern flank <,> the pharmaceutical society is launching a campaign to warn people about the dangers of tranquillisers it wants pharmacists around the country to warn people that tranquillisers such as valium can be addictive society president ron rosenberg says they're a helpful way of coping with anxiety and sleeplessness but may make the user dependent if taken for more than a few weeks at a time the pharmaceutical society and health department have produced an information leaflet for pharmacists to use when telling customers about the potential <&>26:00 danger of tranquillisers <,> the talented young christchurch violinist sarah mclelland has been appointed leader of the world youth orchestra the twenty one year old who's currently in sweden will lead the orchestra on its european tour which begins in stockholm on august the first sarah got a three thousand dollar travel grant from new zealand post earlier this year to join the world youth orchestra for the tour last year she led the national youth orchestra in a series of concerts in christchurch marking new zealand's one hundred and fiftieth birthday <,> the libyan leader colonel gadafi has announced his candidacy for president of italy gadafi wants to take advantage of an obscure law dating from italy's colonisation of libya the law accords libyans the same rights as italians gadafi told italian television that the goal of his candidacy is to give power back to the italian people then he'll nip back to libya <&>25:52